


Uncanny Valley

by arlathahn



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Car Accidents, Food as an allegory for humanity, Gen, Hank gifting Connor with food which Connor refuses to partake: the ongoing saga, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-06-01 00:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15131003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arlathahn/pseuds/arlathahn
Summary: It sounds like the beginning to a bad joke. An android and a policeman walk into a bar…But what do you know. Somehow, someway, it works.





	Uncanny Valley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wrenbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrenbird/gifts).



> Oh, these two. *sighs happily*
> 
> PSA: Connor technically dies in this fic once, because I wanted to tweak the narrative just enough to make it fresh, and to allow Hank and Connor a chance to bond and grow over their suicidal tendencies together (in the most ass-backwards way, because Hank). However, it's near the beginning of the game (the interrogation, where I also died on my first playthrough before re-loading because I'm a sap), and it's there for a reason: I promise I'm not throwing Connor under the gun for no substantial purpose. So be aware of the tags and be safe, lovelies!

 

* * *

 

When Hank first meets Connor, there is blood pooling on the floor and water rushing in through the windows, staining the dark vinyl floors and the white billowing curtains of an ultra-fancy, ultra-lavish downtown Detroit home. The place was impeccable once, impeccable and loved, but one android upheaval has tossed all that rich idealism to shit, resulting in not one, but two dead bodies littered on the floor, altering the landscape forever.

He meets Connor at a crime scene.

It’s not surprising, given that it’s exactly one half of where Hank spends his time, the other half spent drowning himself in whatever poison happens to strike his fancy. What is surprising is an android being assigned to the case—an android _investigator_ at that. He’s dressed more primly than Hank, he stands straighter than Hank, he’s more aware and more intelligent than Hank. It’s not surprising, but it is off-putting, and Hank is distinctly not impressed.

The hangover pounding between Hank’s eyelids certainly doesn’t help improve the scenery either, but Hank is hard pressed to admit that to anyone, android or otherwise.

Instead Hank watches, bemused and more than a little fascinated, as the prototype inspects his way across the crime scene. He’s _good,_ no doubt about it. He’s thorough and precise, and maybe that’s the most troubling part. Hank knows it’s the way of the future, knows his job will soon be replaced by the robotic counterpart currently analyzing bloodstains on the floor, but predicting his own future according to the too-pretty, too-competent face in front of him leaves a bittersweet aftertaste. Technology always stretches its reach just when Hank least expects it, just when there’s a routine murder with no real intelligent thinking involved, or an offbeat android who got jealous and went on an emotional rampage. Just when there’s comfortability, a _routine_ , something has to come along and throw Hank’s life off track, and right now it’s the dark-haired, dark-eyed RK800 model licking blood off the floor.

It’s fucking unsettling is what it is.

And that’s not even the strangest part.

There’s a fish on the floor, flopping around in a near death panic. Plenty of humans have walked right by, not bothering to notice or care, which is no big surprise in a case with this much legal ramification. What is a shocker is Connor—coin tossing, neck tightening, fucking prototype android Connor—rounding the corner and glancing at the floor. He’s the only humanoid who’s bothered looking, let alone stopping. Even Hank hasn’t really inspected the offense; more like glanced in its general direction and decided it wasn’t worth his time. Simple as that.

But Connor kneels down, balancing perfectly on his calves, and surveys the flopping fish. For half a second Hank thinks the hunk of over-expensive junk will simply watch the fish circle its untimely demise until the inevitable happens, because in his experience androids are creepy fuckers who find the morbid fascinating. And while it’s uncomfortable to sit and watch a robot hover over a nearly-dead fish, it’s more awkward to just walk away and wonder who should feel more guilty, a human or a robot. So Hank forces himself to continue his current narrative state of mild disinterest, because his pride trumps one terminal animal from the seaworld. And his labor is rewarded, somehow, because Connor stuns everyone in the room by scooping up the slippery bastard and dropping it back into the fish tank in less than two seconds flat.

A fucking _fish_.

And the thing is—there’s a moment. Even half-drunk, half-irritated, perverse night-owl Hank Anderson can see it: wide brown eyes, innocent face, shoulders turned in piqued curiosity. Not an android and not a man either, but a sort of in between—a definite, tangible being who is fascinated and intrigued and one hundred percent the spitting image of a boy Hank used to know.

And Hank knows. He’s well and truly _fucked_.

 

* * *

 

Hank laughs about it a few nights later, hunched over a bottle of scotch and a gun with one bullet. There’s nothing funny about the scenery, of course, but there’s humor in the irony, that’s for damn sure.

Because see, Hank circles the drain himself most nights. It’s a game of sorts, a test of fate. Most nights it ends more in a hangover and less a gamble of life or death, but the option is there just the same, dangling like a flopping fish in an overused hallway: unnoticed and unseen or worse—observed but just uncared for.

Hank doesn’t even know if he’s the fish or the bystanders, in this particular allegory.

Most nights Hank sits and stews and drinks until morning, then passes out, wakes back up, goes to work and repeats the whole damn cycle over again. Most nights he’s bitched out by ten, sober by noon, back home and mourning his existence by eight. It’s a familiar beat, if a morose one.

It’s well past eleven now, which means he’s just at the tipping point between honest and wasted, at the stretch of deserted road leading to oblivion. It’s a place of raw honesty and hard truths, of wondering whether tonight’s the night he’ll find his nerve and muster some courage to _do_ something about his life, even if it means ending it. He hasn’t had the courage yet so far, and the liquor in his bloodstream makes him just ruthless enough to acknowledge he wasn’t brave enough before his life went to shit, either. He wasn’t brave the day his truck skidded on the ice, and he certainly wasn’t brave when he refused to look in the operating window and accept the news from the nurse. Maybe he never was brave in any semblance of the word, except when it came to being an officer.

Except the only place it doesn’t matter, anymore.

Most nights are the same, but tonight Hank laughs. Tonight Hank cackles at the irony of being a fish out of water, and an android—a fucking android named fucking Connor—taking the time out of his precious programmed day to pick up a dying fish because he fucking felt like it. He didn’t put it out of its fish misery, he didn’t ignore it like the rest. He saved it, when Hank knows—he _knows_ —that bastard’s programming said nothing of the sort. There was nothing of value on that vinyl floor, no evidence or intel to be gained. There’s no chance a fish would be worth a robot’s time, full stop.

An android, who values life even less than Hank values his. An android, who doesn’t comprehend the meaning of life at all. An android, who doesn’t feel fear, who doesn’t loathe death. An android who doesn’t miss anything, an android who never feels fucking guilty.

An android, but one who didn’t act like the rest.

It’s been a long time since Hank has had a reason to laugh at life’s irony, and it feels good to belly laugh, overeager and giddy. It feels like a nice break of pace, a break from the monotony of misery. It won’t last, he knows; they’ll solve the case and the dumb robot shithead will be on his merry programmed way, but until then, he gave Hank one last laugh.

And it—it feels pretty damn good, until then.

 

* * *

 

Hank avoids a bullet that night, but more importantly, he misses one last glass, too.

It’s a fluke, of course, but it’s not the only one.

 

* * *

 

He thought it couldn’t ever get harder.

Harder than the initial pain of death, harder than losing someone you love. But somehow holding a fucking android in your hands as it takes its last and final breath—or programmed spin, or whatever the fuck android components _do_ to keep their hosts alive—feeling their forehead cupped in your palms and their chest rising and falling beneath your fingers before dipping low and holding there on a final false exhale—

That’s worse.

At least with Cole, he didn’t see it happening. He didn’t die in Hank’s arms outside in the snow. In fact, Hank never felt his son again after the initial crunch of metal against concrete. The scenery is entirely different here, the situation anything but familiar, and Connor isn’t a boy besides. He isn’t even human, and yet Hank feels him die in every sense of the word, and it feels more real than the accident from Hank’s memory some six years before.

And just there, Hank knows it wasn’t a fluke thing. It wasn’t even a _thing_ at all, because now the moment is gone and Connor is a lifeless android who just died in his arms.

And Hank is—Hank is well and thoroughly _fucked_.

 

* * *

 

It throws their investigation on a bit of a setback, of course, but not as much as it puts _Hank_ on a setback. Several pages back, maybe even entire novels back, emotionally speaking.

He’s already on thin ice, he knows, and it would be the perfect excuse to get out. To turn in his badge and just _do_ what needs to be done, to rid the world of one more overweight, cantankerous man who lost it all, then lost himself. It’s an old, overused tale much too common in the police force—or at least, it was, before androids took over their jobs, too. No one would be surprised, that much Hank knows, and certainly no one would bat an eye to learn that the late, great Hank Anderson was next on the long list of suicidal police personnel. They’d commemorate his funeral, sure, but even then, it would be more an accolade to his former life than an ode to who he is now. Which Hank understands, with perfect clarify, because he’s no one of value anymore. He cares, but not enough to change the cards. He cares, but not enough to bother explaining. He cares, but he just doesn’t care enough.

Hank used to think he would tough it out until the end of this investigation, but watching Connor die—watching Connor die in his fucking arms while blue blood spilled out of his chest and onto the floor—watching his unwanted, unappreciated plastic partner call out his name in a voice so weak it sounded like a boy’s, it sounded like a _human’s_ , Hank knows his duty has been thoroughly fucked up by his emotions, and that isn’t just the booze talking, anymore. It’s his sober self too, and that’s the bottom line.

He’s fucked up, fucked over, he’s fucking done. It doesn’t get more simple and straightforward than that.

The new Connor is at his elbow, re-enacting _that_ scene from earlier, the one when he first arrived at the police station and was so eager to get to know Hank and everything about him. He’s already brought up the basketball game, like the previous version of himself wasn’t _there_ when Hank was watching the fucking game. Hank’s dog will be the next topic of conversation, per social relations protocol, or whatever the fuck Connor called it the first time around, so as soon as the question repeats itself, Hank opens his very loud, very stupid mouth.

“What is it with you and animals?”

Connor blinks, but doesn’t move. “Beg pardon?”

Hank didn’t quite realize he voiced the thought aloud. “You just...I watched you save a fish once. Totally random, everyone else overlooked it. You just saw it and you fixed the problem. It was really somethin’.”

The blue LED at Connor’s temple flickers once, twice, three times, before stabilizing a solid yellow glow. “I remember,” he says, so quietly Hank almost doesn’t hear it. There’s a beat when Connor looks off into the distance, at absolutely fucking nothing, before refocusing on his sleeve. “They told me I was the only one of my class.”

Hank scoffs, too thrown to really care about this new model’s feelings or etiquette for tact. “Well, that’s just bullshit.”

Connor blinks up at Hank, and his face is so open, so trusting, so utterly vulnerable Hank regrets opening his mouth at all. “How many have there been?”

“Uh…” Hank mentally backtracks ten feet, suddenly terrified to broach the subject without a drink in his hand. “You’re the second. I’ve only met one other version of you.”

Connor’s brow furrows the slightest bit, like he’s reigning in a deep well of emotion. Anger, most likely, but Hank isn’t suicidal enough to ask, not right now. “How long?” Connor asks on a whisper.

“Just a week,” Hank answers quickly, because that question is easier to manage. “We haven’t known each other long or anything, just…”

Connor looks like he’s reigning in a breath, and Hank realizes he is, too. “Just long enough, I suppose.”

And then Connor asks the worst question of all, the question that’s haunted Hank for the past half-decade, the question that haunts every living being after someone else dies, the question that plagues the guilty, that destroys the innocent. The singular question for every injustice, crime, and murder. The question Hank never thought he would hear out loud, let alone asked of him from another, very different kind of being, a being who shouldn’t understand the question at all:

“Why did I die?”

 

* * *

 

Oh, if only his therapist could see him now. She’d have a fucking field day.

It’s literally every therapy session Hank Anderson has ever attended come to life: an innocent boy, haunting Hank from the afterlife, asking why this horrible crime happened to him. Asking Hank what happened, why he didn’t do more. Hank was a police officer before he was a father of none, so it isn’t surprising, or even unexpected, and yet Hank is sitting there, breathless and dumbfounded, because a robot just asked him a question about life and death, and in the process addressed all of Hank’s deep-rooted insecurities in one brilliant stroke. If it weren’t occuring to him in real time, Hank would ask if this were a dream, because he’s had plenty nightmares that played out exactly like this.

But the reality doesn’t disappear, and the question doesn’t go away. It lingers, awkward and real from Connor’s lips.

And since Hank didn’t bother attending many of those therapy sessions, let alone listen to a professional about dealing with the aftereffects of losing a loved one, he doesn’t have a fucking clue about how to navigate deviancy, or existential crises, or separating yourself from the past.

Maybe, also, because Hank is going through the same goddamn thing himself.

 

* * *

 

There’s a moment, between one breath and the next, when Hank is legitimately concerned for Connor’s well being.

Which is ridiculous. Because Connor is an android, for one, and not sentient, for another. He’s not Hank’s problem, for a third, and not the same Connor who died, for a fourth. The list goes on and on, and the rational part of Hank’s brain reminds him that Connor prototype number fifty-two is decidedly _not_ Hank’s problem.

And yet.

It’s the nature of Hank’s profession, he supposes, that the signs are more obvious to him. It’s logical and standing there in plain sight under the too-white fluorescent lamp, and he’s seen it a hundred times before. There’s the trigger question, there’s Connor’s shaken voice as he fights a war within himself, composure versus devastation. Hank can practically see the computer gears turning, battling inside his skull for hard-earned terrain, and Hank stuck somewhere in the middle, with the ability to tip the scale one way or the other with a single word.

Somehow, it’s infinitely more terrifying than anything Hank has experienced up until that point. It’s both his first day of work and the moment he lost his son at the same time, and that makes it more emotional, more daunting, and more everlasting, too, because what Hank decides next may very well determine Connor’s future, and that wasn’t a thing Hank thought he cared about until it was handed to him on a silver platter and someone handed him the cutting knife.

He doesn’t realize it at the time, but it’s the first time Hank Anderson has given a shit about anything except his own miserable lot in a very, very long time.

And it won’t be the last.

 

* * *

 

“You died after interrogating another android. Everything went smoothly, you did everything by the book, but afterwards it—” Hank winces. “It started hurting itself, and when the officer went to de-escalate the situation it got a gun and fired.”

“It was punishing me for extracting the confession?”

Hank shrugs. “Maybe, but that’s not—you didn’t _deserve_ it.”

Connor scoffs, and the sarcasm sounds wrong coming from a recently-murdered android’s lips. “I’m not sure anyone agrees with that sentiment, lieutenant, including yourself.”

Hank sighs. He was hoping they wouldn’t go right past the barrier into uncomfortable territory, but here they are. “Listen, it’s not—”

“Save your breath, lieutenant. I’m not interested in proverbial half-truths to spare my so-called feelings.”

Hank actually laughs at that, bitterness rising like bile in his throat. “Kid, you do _not_ know me well enough to know this, so let me state this once and exactly once: I am not here to make you feel better about life. Okay? I’m here to watch your back and keep you in line and make sure you get back to your robotic superiors in one piece. And I failed, on all counts. You died on my watch, right in front of me, your final breath was literally in my arms. It was traumatizing as fuck thanks to my son dying when he was six, and I’m not really ready to look you in the eye right now, but here we both are. Whoopty-fucking-doo.”

 

* * *

 

Hank has never been thanked for his brash honesty, and no one has ever complimented his interpersonal skills. It’s not exactly his strong suit, and neither is police reporting, or therapy sessions, or really anything that is not drinking or investigating.

So Hank can honestly say he is well and truly shaken when Connor—coin tossing, neck tightening, fucking prototype android Connor—looks him in the eye, a little moisture collecting at the edge there, and says in a voice so fragile it’s near breaking: “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a fluke, of course, but it isn’t the last.

Of course, it does beg the question: how many incidents before mere coincidence is more than just that? How long before you lean on that which is repetitious? It’s an officer’s most dangerous question, because to trust means to fall. There’s not a partnership in existence that didn’t have some sort of moral quandary to overcome, and Hank never really understood the value for the price, before.

But, Hank thinks, staring at Connor for a beat too long, it can’t be any worse than his failed attempts to destroy himself. So he chooses to trust. Slowly, tenderly. With little thought to himself, and more with arms wide open, ready to catch Connor when he falls. It’s completely illogical—who needs to catch a machine—but Hank does it anyway.

And what do you know. Somehow, someway, it works.

 

* * *

 

It’s an eye-opener, their shared brush with death.

Shared not because they both almost died, but because one half of their partnership did, and that is one half too many. Shared because that half was an android, replaced by another android. Shared because that same android becomes increasingly bothered by the thought of death, of being second fiddle, of being so easily replaced.

Connor fakes it well enough, fakes it in a way Hank never could. If Hank masks pain with booze and guns, then Connor masks with direct professionalism, with miles of work and nothing else. To the world at large he’s the most efficient he’s ever been, and the statistics line up with the facts. But Hank is either brilliant enough or idiotic enough to see patterns not in black and white. He looks beyond what’s apparent, and finds the uncanny valley somewhere between the lines.

What he discovers is startlingly familiar, which is more surprising than finding Connor’s suicidal streak at all.

It starts with a chase through downtown Detroit, after a report of a violent deviant gone rogue. Connor catches up with the suspect, perfect human replica that he is, while Hank heaves some minutes behind. He manages to catch a side alley to cut across and regroup with his robotic partner just in time to watch Connor do something well and truly _stupid_.

Connor starts to climb the fence, the idiot, before Hank stops him with a hand to his shoulder. “Don’t be stupid, you’ll be hit by those cars in three seconds flat.”

Connor breathes through his nose, fingers clamped between the fence holes. “I can’t just sit here, lieutenant, I—”

“Will you _listen_ to me, for once in your goddamn life? Superior officer, remember?”

Connor huffs, but stands still. The rain covers the angular planes of his face, and this close Hank can see how Connor composes himself, how the strict android neutrality glides back into place with graceful ease.

Hank sighs and moves his hand, which is his first and last mistake. Give an inch and they’ll take a mile and all that bullshit.

“I can’t do that, lieutenant,” Connor says, the spitting image of polite robot rebellion, before jumping the fence and sliding away to his doom.

“Connor!” Hank curses and fumbles with the chain-link fence, as though two-hundred and ten pounds of muscle and cheeseburgers is going to get him anywhere close to his ultra-speed partner. Connor doesn’t bother looking or turning around, too busy ignoring protocol and running onto the highway and straight to his death thanks to the other technological marvel of automated cars.

There’s some sort of sick irony there somewhere, Hank is sure of it.

It’s unsettling, this annoying habit Connor has of getting under Hank’s skin. Time and again he makes Hank a bystander, standing useless by the wayside, proved yet again as Hank’s improved alter ego makes it across four lanes of traffic without dying. Hank shouldn’t be surprised, but he waits with bated breath anyway, too scared to bother cursing or praying, even from this distance.

Honestly, the fucker has to pick a car accident, of all things.

Connor doesn’t _know_ , of course, but that just makes Hank angrier despite it all. He knows the feeling of adrenaline rushing through your veins, knows the feeling of truly _living_ on the edge after weeks of empty loneliness with no escape in sight. He knows, but that doesn’t make it any more bearable to watch it happen to another person, even if that person isn’t really a person at all.

Connor closes in on the arrest, captures the deviant in his arms, and for a moment Hank thinks Connor has completed his mission after all. This fool’s errand has somehow paid off, and Hank has been schooled yet again by a prototype genius with a death wish.

But then a bus comes barrelling down the highway at just the wrong moment, nicking Connor’s heel and propelling both cop and deviant forward, right in the path of five cars closing in at top speeds. Hank can see it all happening before his eyes, that hapless feeling fogging his vision, and his mind _screams_ Connor’s name, though his mouth doesn’t bother registering the command. It’s too late, and the exclamation would distract Connor from time he doesn’t have. Or maybe it wouldn’t distract Connor at all, what does Hank know about Connor’s command center of a brain. Hank watches as Connor rolls a fraction of a second too late, watches the right tire of the first car skid along Connor’s torso and shoulder, hears the sickening _crack_ as rubber breaks the hard plastic that may as well be a humanoid bone.

Hank isn’t proud to say he turns away. He thought he would be stronger than this, braver the second time around, but the truth is Hank was a coward the first time, and he’s a coward the second time, too.

The truth is some things never, ever change.   

 

* * *

 

Connor doesn’t die on the highway, but he comes pretty damn close.

Hank doesn’t say anything on the ride back to the precinct, not even to complain about the blue stains currently stinking up his passenger’s seat, and Connor is either smart enough or stupid enough to do the same.

 

* * *

 

He’s fixing a bandage over Connor’s blue-purple ribcage when Connor pulls his most surprising move yet.

An apology.

“I’m sorry for my behavior today, lieutenant.”

He’s not looking Hank in the eye, but his gaze is honest, even if it isn’t trained on Hank at the moment. His inflection is genuine, his stature resigned, as though he’s fully expecting Hank to call him off the case for his insubordinate, irrational behavior.

“Well,” Hank keeps his voice as indifferent as possible, “I won’t lie, normally I am a fan of breaking rules. To a point, anyway.” Connor looks up at that, eyes wide and naive as ever. It’s a look Hank didn’t know was possible to miss, a look he didn’t know _was_ missing until this moment, when he realizes he hasn’t seen Connor’s puppy-dog display at any point in the past week and a half.

Hank won’t admit it’s a good look on his partner, but he won’t _not_ admit it, either. He’s still pissy and frustrated, and also needs a stiff drink or five. It hasn’t been a good week for either of them, and Hank feels the irritating, irrational need to both think and _not_ think at the same time.

So he straddles the middle of the road and busts the android’s synthetic balls a _little_ bit. “What you did today was incredibly stupid.”

Connor laughs, exactly once, before looking back down at his shoes, which are covered in blood. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Hank goes back to applying the bandage, just on the side of too tight because he’s an asshole and Connor won’t complain. He doesn’t offer any more reprimands, and he doesn’t bother asking why Connor did it, either. The truth is, he already knows.

He knows far, far too well.

 

* * *

 

Things don’t go back to normal, as such. There wasn’t enough time before the first Connor died to establish any sort of pattern or status quo, so there isn’t any sort of rebound to work back to or re-integrate. But there is a new normal, of sorts, and it’s somehow remarkably better than the first. It occurs to Hank some three weeks later that this is another of life’s ironies: that the second, improved version of their hair-brained partnership would not be possible without the first, failed one.

There are no more close calls, anyway, for a good two weeks. They make it well into November before Connor risks his life for the mission again, and Hank berates him with a well-earned scolding. Everything is normal, or normal enough, until Connor opens his state of the art synthetic mouth and what comes out is: “Don’t you think you’re preaching to the choir there, Hank?”

It’s the first and last time he calls Hank by his first name, at least.

They don’t speak for three days after that. They work in relative silence, resorting to words only to update reports and e-mail files back and forth. It’s a fortunate slow week, a rare reprieve, but the quiet only serves to reinforce the awkward silence between work spaces. Hank doesn’t do well with hard truths, and Connor doesn’t do well with small talk. The week ends on a somber note, with Hank resorting to the only form of comfort he can find when he isn’t analyzing Connor’s robotic face for clues, which is the bottom of a bottle.

It’s been a few months since Hank has sunk quite so low; it’s only once he’s staring at the firing cannon of a pistol that he realizes his last relapse was also at Connor’s hand. Inadvertently, of course, and a different model now besides, but still Connor all the same. It’s not his fault, or even his doing, really, but drunk Hank Anderson doesn’t know the difference, and more importantly, doesn’t care.  

It’s like deja vu all over again, another one of those dumb therapy dreams when Connor appears above him that night, in his fucking house standing in his fucking kitchen, slapping Hank in the fucking face.

“It’s me. Connor,” he announces before slapping Hank again, harder this time.

So Hank does what any respectable man who has just been woken out of a drunken stupor and berated into consciousness would do, and yells. Loudly.

It’s only after he’s sitting in the shower, with his own sweat and vomit to keep him company, that Hank decides what pisses him off about Connor— _I’m a prototype RK800_ Connor—is that Hank is so easily transparent to him. Hank can count on one hand the number of officers at the precinct who offered their condolences about Cole, and he can count how many people have asked after him, have helped him, on less than four fingers. Hank knows he hasn’t made it easy, but any one of them could do what Connor just did: anyone could have showed up at Hank’s house and found him passed out on the floor, choking on his own vomit. Anyone could have seen the photo, the gun, and put two and two together. Anyone could have done it, but no one did. Everyone just walked on by, too worried about Russia or the presidency or fucking androids taking over their fucking jobs. No one ever bothered, and while Hank doesn’t _like_ Connor interrupting his life, while he doesn’t _like_ feeling this vulnerable, there’s a small, small part of Hank that appreciates the gesture for the genuine concern it is. There’s a part of Hank that appreciates someone noticing and _caring_ to notice, after so many years left alone in the dark with no one but an overweight dog to talk to.

And just there, Hank realizes.

This Connor isn’t different from the first Connor. They are both the same, with different memories. Hank was a right dickhead for assuming this second prototype wouldn’t struggle with the knowledge of being replaced, wouldn’t question his existence or his command. And Hank didn’t help him at all, despite all the signs being right there in front of him, meanwhile Connor did precisely the opposite under the guise of strict professionalism because that’s the only time Hank will take five goddamn seconds to really _listen_ to a fucking robot.

It wasn’t the android’s fault Cole died that day. It was a human who botched the surgery first, and an android who tried his hardest second.

Hank was always the fish, flopping unnoticed in the hallway. And Connor was always going to be the android who saved him.

 

* * *

 

A life for a life. Death came first and life came second, for both of them.

For them both.

* * *

 

The thing is, Hank doesn’t really know how to _talk_ about any of this shit.

It’s fair to say he isn’t great with words, and even worse with grand epiphanies. He doesn’t know how to navigate this foreign terrain, and even if he did, he doesn’t possess the vocabulary to adequately communicate what he’s going through, or how it feels, or in general what the fuck should come next.

But he knows he’d like to try.

They go to the nightclub, which helps Hank’s attempts to talk exactly zero percent. It’s been a long time since he’s put himself out there, sexually or otherwise, and somehow it seems infinitely more awkward, more personal, and all around just plain _weird_ to embark on the journey to acceptance in a booth full of android models hanging out in their underwear.

Of course, it doesn’t help that Connor starts licking blue blood off a dead call girl’s face.

“Connor, you’re so disgusting,” Hank says, which is the precise opposite of what he _should_ say, and he knows it.

Connor ignores him, because he knows Hank well enough to know he’s all bark and no bite. Or mostly, anyway. Which should be more irritating than it actually is, because now it just serves to remind Hank that Connor knows him pretty damn well and Hank has actually been a cranky old bastard for the bulk of their partnership.

The investigation itself is stressful, actually, and there’s a countdown to boot. Hank _hates_ countdowns more than he hates Mondays, which is saying something. Dead bodies he can deal with. Mysteries are fine. But countdowns are always a fucking shitshow and Hank avoids those whenever possible. Hence, the booze.

Turns out Connor is even more helpful in a crisis, which Hank never really thought about at length before, but in reality makes perfect sense. Connor is calm, Connor is collected. Connor can analyze blood in his mouth, and tell you the make and model of an android just by staring at it long enough. He can predict deviant behavior, and he can figure where they might have went and why.

Hank thinks about this, then watches as Connor allows two suspects to escape. Two suspects who are androids, two suspects that fought for survival just to get back to each other. Two androids who, like the deviants before them, just wanted to survive and retain themselves, unique and whole, as they are. Two androids who just want to be free.

Hank doesn’t really watch the girls. He’s fascinated by them well enough, but not as fascinated as he is by Connor, prototype RK800-52 Connor, whose LED is blinking yellow, whose face is fractured by repressed emotion, whose eyes glance back and forth between Hank and the chain-link fence, like Hank is going to berate him again if he dares cross a line.

But Hank doesn’t say anything, this time, because what’s most fascinating is discovering what Connor will choose for himself.  

 

* * *

 

In retrospect, the last drink may have been a mistake.

Connor is standing beside him while Hank sits on a park bench, rambling about things he shouldn’t because he’s drunk and he doesn’t understand shit, but mostly he doesn’t understand the android at his elbow. Except the truth is more complicated, because the truth is Hank is scared he _does_ understand, and that’s infinitely more terrifying because Hank doesn’t know what that _means_ , even if he maybe, kind of, does.

Hence the drinking.

It makes him angry. It makes him irrational and ruthless, in a way the day after a long night of heavy drinking does. It makes him honest, when Connor asks that million dollar question: “There was a photo of a boy on your kitchen table. Who was it?” in a voice so frail Hank would think him sympathetic if he hadn’t seen Connor let two androids run free not two hours before.

Now Hank _knows_ Connor has sympathy. With certainty.

And somehow that’s—worse.

So Hank takes a gun to his problems, because he always does. Because it’s what he’s used to, after this much anguish and this many beers. And Connor doesn’t bat a single synthetic eyelash. Not an ounce of fear is present on the perfect slope of his cheekbones, and it’s irritating, having all that android perfection staring Hank in the face. All that perfection, and it’s still fucking imperfect. Hank knows there’s infallibility in there somewhere, because he’s seen it firsthand and it’s _that_ knowledge that fuels the insatiable curiosity inside him, the burning need to solve the mystery once and for all. Was it a mistake, that day in the operating room, or was it nerves? Was it a mistake, or was it fear?

Hank pushes and shoves, he questions and escalates. Connor stands there with snow in his hair and emotion in his eyes, looking every inch the innocent wonderboy his employers have marketed him to be, and it really is quite the pitch. It really is believable, but Hank still isn’t buying.

He wants to pull the trigger. The most desperate, most selfish, the worst part of Hank _wants_ to take this anger out on someone without consequence, someone who will come back from the dead with no memory of the murder. Cyberlife wouldn’t touch Hank, and the station would never need to know. They just got back from a case, after all, and any number of accidents could have happened. It’s the easy out Hank’s been waiting for, a way to exterminate the pain without taking his own life. It would be so easy, Hank thinks, with his hand hovering over the trigger. It would be so, so easy to release the pressure he’s been holding, to liberate the guilt and move on.

But he hesitates on the threshold. Like a mirror image of Connor just a few hours ago, Hank wavers with a gun in his palms. Not because he has strict instructions, but because he has none. There’s no rulebook for outliving your child, and there’s no map for the long road back to finding yourself. There’s just Hank and the alcohol in his veins; there’s just Connor and the thirium running through his.

Hank hesitates because if he does pull the trigger, it proves how little Connor matters. There’s no agency behind the action, just blind rage that Hank is too much of a coward to dole out on himself. But if he _doesn’t_ shoot, there’s something deeper happening here, something terrifyingly real—as real as a baby boy Hank used to know, a boy Hank used to call his.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” Hank asks instead of pulling the firing pin, and he isn’t really expecting an answer.

 _Why didn’t you shoot,_  Hank thinks into the awkward silence between man and machine, and hopes no one will ask him the same question.

 

* * *

 

That night, Hank stares at himself in the mirror for ten minutes straight, pondering the image of the old, disenfranchised man staring back at him. There’s a neon sticky note tucked off to the side, out of sight and out of mind, that catches his eye in the reflection.

It’s one of Cole’s, of course, the one who started the goddamn ritual in the first place, as soon as he discovered the magic of words. A word on the mirror before bedtime used to be the rule, and the concept would apply the next day. Like picking an outfit for the following day of work, except it was a sticky note with a moral lesson to remember on the morrow. Some days it was _work hard!_ , and other days it was _breathe easy_. Other days the mirror would read _smile bright!_ , or _keep going!_. Always motivational, always encouraging, and never matching Hank’s wry sense of humor in the slightest.

True to form, the message in Hank’s eye doesn’t fit the general “fuck off” theme of the rest surrounding his sink, but today Hank takes the time to really contemplate Cole’s final pearl of wisdom, because Cole would have wanted him to, and because Hank has always wanted to do right by his son.

Even if it’s a little too late to start.

 _Bee kind_ , the note reads, a simple message in the universal godawful handwriting of a five year old. Hank chuckles at the penmanship, then the spelling, before looking himself in the mirror one more time and plastering the note and its remaining stickiness right in front of his face.

“I’ll try, kiddo,” Hank whispers. It’s not a promise he can guarantee he’ll keep, but the motivation is genuine. The effort is true, and above all, honest.

He’ll try.

 

* * *

 

Hank crosses his ankles on his desk, motions at the fresh box of donuts, then makes an inviting motion toward Connor’s side of the table.

“Come on, it’s a donut.”

Connor inspects the box carefully, like he’s thinking of licking blood off his fingers despite strict instructions not to. It’s his constipated thinking face, the one where he’s computing logistics in half a second and is about to tell Hank something disturbingly accurate about the cholesterol intake of his food, or recite in specific detail how it was made, or just generally make Hank uneasy about something as wonderfully soothing as a glazed fucking donut.

“I do not eat, lieutenant.”

Hank snorts, loudly. “No shit. I’m offering one anyway.”

Connor looks up from the box, calculations complete. His head tilts the slightest degree, not unlike Hank’s dog back home. “Why?”

Hank shoves the box at Connor’s chest, breastplate, what the fuck ever. “Jesus, it’s not a trick question. You won’t die from a little calorie intake, will ya?”

A pause. “No, but the organic matter will not digest correctly with my manufactured organs.”

Hank sniffs obnoxiously, relishing the fresh bakery scent before diving in. He fucking loves Thursdays. It’s one more day until Friday. “So, what can you have?” he asks, feeling generous.

Connor—fucking prototype, top of his class, smartass computer in a fucking person Connor—actually tips his head further sideways in confusion. “I do not require anything except my components and the necessities to keep them in working order.”

Hank waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, spare me. I don’t _need_ a donut, but I eat them anyway. Because I like it, see?”

Connor just sits there, looking stupid. Hank sighs. “So what would you like? Besides to listen to Death Metal for some fucking awful reason.”

Connor shifts, crossing his arms. “You like it.”

“Yeah, but it’s not exactly a popular opinion. And copying someone else’s taste isn’t really _yours_. It’s just a gimmick.”

Connor acquiesces with a shrug. “When you have nothing to compare it to, you don’t know where to start.”

And _that_ gets Hank’s attention. “Exactly. So try a donut.”

“I do not require—”

Hank waves his arms again, more vehement this time. “No, no, I don’t want your robotic bullshit. I’m asking you to run one of those hypotheticals you’re always raving about. What do you call them? Compu-science something?”

Connor raises an eyebrow. “Crime scene analysis reconstructions?”

Hank snaps his fingers. “That’s the one. Also, you really need an acronym for that shit.”

For a moment, Connor’s face threatens to break into a honest to god smile. The neutral, professional mask breaks away, and a glimmer of something personal appears in the dimple on his left cheek. It’s amazing, really, the kind of detail Cyberlife put into those facial muscles. Brilliant, even, and a damn shame for all of it to go to waste on a too-serious cyberpunk like Connor, fucking robo-cop in the flesh.

Hank is just beginning to wonder if it’d be worth the extra effort to see Conner’s professional facade crack for good, when fucking Reed trots over with the promise of donuts and fresh coffee to spill on Hank’s latest piece of hardware. Moment lost, Connor politely excuses himself because he doesn’t need sustenance and hot liquid on his otherwise human appearance might damage Cyberlife’s admittedly expensive project. He makes it about halfway across the precinct before Reed’s elbow makes direct contact with Connor’s ribs, and from there the afternoon is full of bad cop jokes mixed with bad robot jokes, and Connor shifting anxiously in the corner, dabbing at his right sleeve when he thinks no one is looking.

In retaliation, Hank makes sure to misplace Reed’s favorite leather jacket on his way out the door. The best part, in Hank’s opinion, is no one will ever think to question him about it, because Hank is a well-known asshole.

It’s not often Hank garners himself with a win-win, and he can count the number of recent victories—professional or otherwise—on one hand. But this feels like one, maybe, and there’s a distinct possibility it doesn’t have to do with Reed at all. Or at least, not only.  
  
But if anyone asks, Hank just fucking loves Thursdays.

 

* * *

 

On Tuesday, Connor doesn’t shoot.

Kamski is a weird fucker, that much is apparent within the first ten minutes of sitting in his foyer, awkwardly staring at the dude’s own visage on a huge canvas. They’re welcomed in by an android, which isn’t surprising, or even wrong, but the vibes are just _weird_ , something Hank never thought he would find remarkable or off-putting. Needless to say Hank will never complain about Connor’s tendency for ties and formal attire ever again. In comparison to this place, Connor’s consistently good manners and mostly good hygiene is a welcome, quirky routine.

Then there’s the pool, which is red for no fucking reason, and also doesn’t stain android or human skin upon exiting, which makes exactly zero sense. It’s as though this Kamski fellow is desperate to defy the limits of physics any way he can, and he’s brought his work home with him to an unhealthy degree. All this coming from Hank, who isn’t exactly the picture of health himself, so you know it’s true. Overall, though, Kamski has the air of someone who has an overabundance of knowledge but plays his cards close to the chest, which is great for him and his odd, arrogant prerogatives, but also not great for the investigation.

Of fucking course.

Hank is ready to call the whole thing off, to be honest, ready to call Kamski’s bluff and explore avenues elsewhere, somewhere distinctly less creepy and morbid _,_ when Kamski proposes a test, and from there the afternoon is significantly less comfortable and more mastermind-y because then there’s a girl on her knees and there’s a gun.

And Connor doesn’t shoot.

Hank tells him not to, of course, meanwhile Kamski whispers in Connor’s ear, the spitting image of a demonic angel fallen from grace, looking for a little trouble to spice things up.

And Hank sees red.

He grabs Connor by the elbow, shields him from Kamski’s pleased grin, and doesn’t let go until they’re on the other side of the red pool and on their way out the door. Hank’s grip on Connor’s forearm is a little too sharp to be considered anything except protection, and Hank is pissed as he always seems to be these days, but for once, the frustration is not at Connor himself. It's _for_ him.

Which is...new.

Outside it’s still snowing, easy and perfect and serene, but Hank doesn’t really care about the landscape. He doesn’t really care about this investigation, if he’s honest, and normally that would throw him for one hell of a loop, but right now he’s more concerned with the piece of hardware connected to his arm. Right now more concerned about Connor.

But he’s still Hank, so instead of commenting on any of the philosophical bullshit running through his brain, instead of asking Connor if he’s okay, and instead of making leads elsewhere, all that comes out is a dumb, quasi-invitation of:

“Come on, let’s get some ice cream. My treat.”

“Okay,” Connor agrees on autopilot, voice too small and too fragile to be considered casual. There’s a pause, then Connor visibly backtracks into something resembling normalcy—for the sake of argument, Hank guesses, which is admittedly more normal in its own right. “Though I do not need—”

Hank points a finger. “You’re trying a cup, Connor, so help me. Today was stressful and _weird_ and you deserve something delicious.”

The Connor model does not smile much, Hank muses, but it comes pretty damn close. Hank watches, relieved beyond belief as Connor’s face relaxes for the first time in twenty minutes, as his eyes crinkle just a little at the corners, as his lips move in a vaguely northern direction.

“All right,” Connor whispers, far too light, and Hank takes it for the victory it is.

They’re walking toward the car, shoulders brushing because comfort is hard to find and harder still to admit, when Connor offers his best analysis yet. “But why was the pool red?”

Hank guffaws. “ _Right_?”

 

* * *

 

Of course, just when things are starting to see a modicum of improvement means that’s just when some outside force will inevitably come along and throw it all to shit. Hank’s been around long enough to know life throws you curveballs just when you’re at the top of your game, just when you least expect it to fall apart. So it shouldn’t surprise him, and it certainly shouldn’t throw him, but it does surprise him, and it sure as hell throws him, which is more irritating than losing the case at all.

It’s a damn shame, but there are some lines that can’t be crossed. Even lines that seemed so close to being blurred, or eradicated, or whatever the fuck he and Connor were finally doing that was good and righteous and possibly even game-changing. Hank can’t describe in words what, precisely, they discovered in their time together—Hank is no philosopher, and he’s certainly no ethics advisor—but it felt a bit like the investigation woke them up separately, then together.

Somehow the revelation seems even more pronounced by Connor— _I’m a prototype RK800_ Connor—sitting on the corner of Hank’s desk, slouched and improper, like he’s not the most buttoned-up, professional robot Hank has ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Of course, Connor hasn’t been that android in a while, now. A long time, if Hank’s being honest. Somewhere between Connor’s more obscure, frankly bizarre android tendencies and his habit of motivating Hank to healthier, better life decisions through sheer annoyance and a pesky attendance record, Hank has grown fond of the company. And it’s not just _an_ android’s company, either. It’s not plural, but singular: Hank looks at Connor’s spine-curving posture, looks at his frantic hands and his unkempt hair and thinks _this_ is the Connor he’s been searching for. It’s not the number of prototype, or the specific package of hardware, but rather the distinct personality beneath the serial number that has finally,  _finally_ come to life.

Which is amazing, frankly. And also another one of those damn shames, because the revelation comes to Hank about two minutes too late. Because watching Connor’s brown eyes straddle the fine line between hope and despair is just about the most human, most damning thing Connor can do.

And that feeling is familiar territory, for Hank. That is a road Hank knows like the back of his hand. He knows the frontage roads and the main highways; he knows the warning signs and the speed limits and the quality of the uneven terrain. He knows the easiest way to cause a crash and he knows the side-roads to cruise stress free, too: he knows just which deserted gravel roads to visit if you need to catch your breath and inhale the pure, dusty aroma of dirt and pollen that is distinctly overwhelming and even more distinctly human.

Except Connor isn’t built to feel anguish like Hank. He isn’t built to feel anguish at all, which is why his LED is a neutral yellow, attempting to compute then re-compute the logistics of emotion. Connor can’t drink like Hank can, he can’t break the rules and get away with arguing against the order of command. He can’t do anything at all save the one thing he was built to do and accept the shitty hand Cyberlife dealt him, and with that, his fate.

“We can’t give up. They’ll—they’re going to disassemble me. Destroy me,” Connor says, not looking at Hank at all, and it’s verbatim what every deviant before him has said. It’s an anomaly in programming, a _deviance_ in software, and Hank has never been more proud, or more afraid.

“Five minutes, that’s all I ask.” Connor looks at Hank, brown eyes wide and innocent and trusting, so trusting, and he is the spitting image of a boy Hank used to know. A boy Hank used to call his.

This is not the face of an android playing on Hank’s emotions. This is not a program who knows just how to manipulate Hank into action. This is more simple, and also more complicated than any single line of code: this is a partner begging for help. This is a friend begging for life.

Hank didn’t have the power to do anything, when Cole’s body was crushed that day. There was no power in Hank’s veins to save him, there wasn’t even the right blood type to donate to one half of his own genes. But Hank does have power here, a unique privilege of race to make or break the tide. There’s a decision before him to rebel or stay stagnant, and it’s a choice Hank never thought would force his hand, made even more surprising that it isn’t a choice at all.

Hank stands, his shoulder brushing Connor’s on his way by. “Key’s on my desk,” he whispers, close. “Be quick about it, you won’t have much time.”

Hank causes a commotion, punches Perkins square in the nose and calls him a cocksucker because he can. Because Hank’s a well-known asshole, and if Hank gets fired now it won’t really matter. Because Hank can afford the consequence, and Connor really, _really_ can’t. Because it’s been a long time since Hank believed in something, something that meant gaining far more than it meant losing. Because this type of fight reminds Hank of a younger, worthier version of himself, a version who might have been a little like Connor himself.

And also because...he can’t allow Connor to go down this road alone. The chance of the past repeating itself is statistically low, Connor would probably say, but Hank won’t chance fate for even the lowest percent. Because Connor is worth beating the odds, android components and disgusting hygiene habits and all.

Because Hank has finally solved his own private mystery, and Connor deserves the chance to solve his.

 

* * *

 

Hank makes sure to dump Reed’s jacket next to the exit on his way out the door, because Connor is going to need a disguise when he walks out of that evidence room, and because Hank _loves_ a poetic ending.

 

* * *

 

Hank drives away from Cyberlife at breakneck speed, mindful of the freshly fallen snow covering the front entrance. He suspects Connor is doing some sort of quasi-mind hacking battle, because his eyes are closed and his LED is blinking yellow, for one, and because the road is miraculously clear of all Cyberlife personnel, for two.

Of course, the army of newly acquired android helps, too.

Hank isn’t really sure where to go. He hasn’t seen the news within an hour or two, but he knows shit hit the proverbial fan where humanity and deviancy is concerned, and two cops joining the fray—two cops who are two different species—is sure to stick out like a sore thumb in Hank’s hand-me-down, piece-of-shit car.

In retrospect, Hank feels a bit foolish for being so easily fooled by the _other_ Connor, and even more foolish for his utter uselessness when it came to converting new androids to the cause. Hank has been helpful precisely zero times in the past twelve hours, and he’s frustrated for causing Connor problems, for one, and for sitting around like a dumbass twiddling his thumbs, for two.

Connor doesn’t even need to be _driven_ downtown, for fuck’s sake, but Hank practically begged for the opportunity for lack of anything better to do.

The ride is silent and tense and borderline awkward, at least for Hank. When they’re about five blocks from central Detroit, Connor blinks awake and the android army stops a few feet behind. “Here,” is all he says.

Hank won’t deny the sight before him is impressive, and he isn’t talking about Markus and their merry band of misfits singing over a fire, either. Connor sucks in a breath like he’s about to march into war, and Hank supposes it’s not far from the truth. The next thirty minutes may as well decide the fate of both man and machine, for good or ill. But somehow the truth that will mean life or death out there—the difference between blood types, species, and sentience levels—doesn’t feel so important in this confined space. In the faded, worn out cushions between a simple gear shift, there is no barrier at all.

Hank has a moment to wish for a very different kind of future, the type he hasn’t hoped for in half a lifetime. The kind where there is no violence or war, the kind where Connor stays, instead of risking his life once again for a world that is unappreciative and undeserving of his bold, passionate version of sacrifice. Hank wishes, and that makes this whole damn mess more miserable, and more bittersweet, because if they could stay contained in this little bubble, then they wouldn’t have to risk at all.  

But they can’t put off the inevitable forever, and they wouldn’t be cops if they let the future decide itself.  

Hank exits the car to face a questioning Connor standing outside the passenger door. “What are you doing?” Connor asks, sounding more like himself. More professional, more confident.

More confused.

Hank gestures before them. “I’m coming with you. Obviously.”

“I—” Connor walks past the front of the car, coming to stand in front of Hank with a face full of utter sincerity. It’s a look Hank didn’t know was possible to miss, a look that’s never appeared more vulnerable or more honest on the handsome planes of Connor’s face. More than his nagging doubts, his questionable loyalty, his lame attempts at humor, the doubt sketched in three neat lines across Connor’s forehead, transforming his expression into one of pinched displeasure, is a look of newfound humanity. It’s a raw thing, honest and heartfelt and brittle as the snow at their feet.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, lieutenant.”

Somehow, for no reason at all, the job title hurts more than the simple request does.

Hank sighs and looks at the ground. He scuffs his shoes along the winter floor. “I can’t just sit here,” he says, before looking up. “I need to do _something_.”

It’s a pathetic excuse, flimsy at best, and they both know it. In yet another ironic twist that is Hank’s life, it’s a complete reversal of the deviant chase so early in their partnership, except the verdict is still the same: Connor will go off and complete the mission without Hank by his side, and Hank will be stuck watching at the sidelines, hoping Connor isn’t crushed beneath a pile of concrete, drowning in a pool of his own blood.

Connor grabs for Hank’s hands, his fingertips just on the right side of chilled. Hank spares a thought to wonder if the RK model was enhanced to mimic the temperature outside, so situations like this don’t feel so unnatural. It’s true there’s nothing unnatural about it: Connor’s fingers glide along Hank’s pulse, his slender hands wrapping around Hank’s wrists like a pair of makeshift handcuffs. Hank isn’t sure what Connor is looking for, doesn’t know if he’s finding whatever that _something_ is on the veiny terrain of Hank’s forearms, but for Hank the message is received loud and clear. Connor’s fingers twist on the final loop, the scarce pressure etching a warning into Hank’s skin. It doesn’t appear all that different from the times Connor has connected with another android, except that the motion is more timid here. It’s unfamiliar terrain, Connor would probably say, and Hank silently agrees.

“Please,” Connor says.

Hank has risked his life for the cause more times than he can count. It’s the nature of the profession, he supposes, and he is more willing than most. He knows the risk and the cost, just like he knows the kind of courage, borderline insanity, it takes to see a job through to the bitter end. He knows and he’s experienced—he’s loved and lost, he’s searched and found. He’s been both and he’s been neither, and while Hank can’t say the scale has tipped one way or the other overnight, he can say with righteous sincerity these past few months have charged him with new direction. One that started with an android he couldn’t give less of a shit about, and one that ended with a partner Hank would protect with his life.

Funny, isn’t it?

But somewhere along the way Hank almost forgot that a partnership means two people, and two people means disagreements. It’s not always a make or break it situation, and it isn’t always life or death, either. But it is about respecting other people’s opinions, their beliefs, even when yours don’t want to fall in line. It’s listening to command, it’s polite sincerity, it’s knowing knowing when to hedge your bets and when to fight back.

Hank looks into Connor’s brown eyes, bright and earnest as ever, with snow in his hair and a bittersweet smile just above his chin, and thinks this perfect person and his heroic stupidity is the epitome of the one lesson Hank has never, ever learned.

“Okay,” Hanks says, even though he isn’t okay at all. Connor just smiles, earnest and sad, as though he knows Hank’s internal conflict and is grateful for the freedom Hank so rarely acquiesces. His hands lift from Hank’s wrist with a wry twist of his mouth, a sort of informal _catch ya later_ grin that Hank hates, damn him, before climbing the wall to the courtyard and quite possibly his doom. Hank stands there, speechless and dumb, thinking how much better life would be, how much better he would feel, if he could stand there stupidly with Connor instead, even if it meant awkwardly making eye contact while Connor held his wrists in a quasi-embrace.

Hank can hear singing vaguely overhead, somewhere over hundreds of feet of marble and concrete, and he wonders if Connor’s voice is among the throng. He wonders if Connor has ever tried singing at all, given his horrible attempt at music theory. Hank glances at the hologram symbol of an android at his elbow, then looks the blood at his feet. There’s red, there’s blue, there’s some blending together in a sticky purple hue, and Hank wonders if it’s too late for his own blood to finally be useful. He wonders whether he’s destined to always be one reaction too late.

He wonders if he’ll ever, ever learn to let go.

 

* * *

 

The truth is, Hank doesn’t care about the revolution so much as he cares about one person. It’s always been about one person, one lesson, one name, one letter. It’s always been about Cole, then Connor. It’s always been about heart, then soul. It’s always been about loving, then losing.

Hank was always just a fish, flopping useless on the floor. There’s nothing he can do but wait, and pray for rain.

 

* * *

 

Connor doesn’t die at the revolution, but he comes pretty damn close.

Hank watches on national fucking television as Connor battles a war within himself, a barely there mind fuck between corporation and machine. Hank had wondered if it might come down to this between Connor and his employers, but to watch it on a dank television screen fifteen miles away strikes fear in all the wrong places. Hank is stuck frozen in place, yelling at the news commentators when they dare cut away from live updates, only calming down once the camera is back in its rightful place, and the gun in Connor’s palms is back in its rightful holster.  

It’s over, Hank thinks. It’s finally, _finally_ over.

Connor walks offstage with Markus close behind, a holy host of freed androids rallying not far behind. Connor stalks right past the mass of reporters, past the policemen and the FBI agents and the general public. They try to stop him for comment, for his name and his model, for anything, but Connor disregards every single one of them with a single-minded fervor Hank has witnessed more times than he can count.

 _Chicken Feed_ , Hank’s phone reads not five minutes later. No punctuation, no emoji. A simple and straightforward message, and unequivocally from one man.

Hank breathes for the first time in hours. _On my way_ , he replies back, knowing full well Connor will be waiting regardless.

 

* * *

 

Hank meets Connor at an unlicensed, uninspected restaurant that’s shut down due to numerous health code violations.

It’s sort of like a crime scene, in that respect.

It’s a Saturday, at some ungodly hour in the morning. The sun still isn’t sure if it’s going to shine, the rain still isn’t sure if it’s going to pour, and Hank still doesn’t know if he’s going to drink. It’s an ethereal time of day, alien and foreign, like something out of a dream. The Chicken Feed isn’t even open, and Hank never did bother to learn its operating hours. It was never going to affect him anyway, so why bother trying to remember something he would inevitably forget?

It’s still true the hours of business don’t matter, because Hank doesn’t care about food right now. He doesn’t care about much of anything, if he’s honest honest, except for the one person who could get him out of bed at this hour.

Connor appears in Hank’s peripheral like the sneaky, dramatic asshole he is, short one tie and one tie clip. Hank has never been more grateful to see a single stretch of deviance, no matter how small.

Hank smiles, and Connor does, too.

Connor still hasn’t learned to try Hank’s disgusting food, and he hasn’t quite mastered the art of smiling, either. He doesn’t quite know how to want things, or how to ask for them, or how to express his desires plainly, but standing here in the early morning sunlight, Connor comes pretty damn close. Closer than he’s ever been, at any rate. He’s still impeccably beautiful to an unsettling degree, he’s still buttoned-up and tailored as ever, but the fringe along his forehead is a little more mussed than usual. The top button of his ironed shirt is open, teasing the barest amount of skin. His smile is more pronounced, bringing that left dimple into sharp focus. His eyes are brighter and softer than Hank’s ever seen, curling upwards in tune with his smile. He looks healthy, and he looks happy.

He looks alive, he looks beautiful, and he’s smiling just for Hank.

Hank doesn’t think when he narrows the three short steps between them. He doesn’t think when he grasps Connor’s shoulder and brings him into orbit. He doesn’t think as he lingers, inhaling the crisp neck of Connor’s Cyberlife jacket.

But he does think when he pulls back and nudges Connor’s elbow.

“Wanna get out of here?”

Connor nods, his hand lingering near Hank’s elbow, and Hank leads him away with a gentle push in the right direction. He means to take Connor out for some form of food he’ll continue to refuse, but somewhere between the third and fifth block, Hank changes his mind. He doesn’t give a single fuck about food today. He doesn’t give a fuck about the war, the talks, the android leadership. He doesn’t care about anything except going home, to a place that was empty and dark and quiet before, to a place that will be bustling now with a dog and an android, a different kind of comfort with a different kind of family.  

Connor smiles again when they turn onto Hank’s street, a timid quirk of lips Hank wouldn’t know existed if he weren’t looking for it.

“What will happen next?” Connor asks, on the curb of Hank’s front door.

Hank sighs with his hand on the doorknob. “I don’t know, Connor.” He deserves the truth, at least. “But we’ll figure it out.”

It’s probably not the most correct thing to say. It’s a little vague and a lot uncertain, but Connor doesn’t seem to mind. He stands in the entryway of Hank’s house, a warmth in his eyes like he’s content to sit out on Hank’s doorstep, before taking a single step into Hank’s house—through the front door this time. He nudges Hank’s elbow on his way across the living room, a barely there brush of jacket against jacket.

“Would you like me to order a pizza? If I had to guess, you haven’t eaten dinner yet this evening,” Connor asks, perfectly pleasant.

And the thing is, there’s a moment where Hank can see his entire evening played out in front of him. There’s the moment Connor will order the pizza inside his brain, which is weird, and Hank will comment on sarcastically, which is rude. There’s Connor attempting to tidy up Hank’s kitchen, which will be a success, except that Hank will hate it because he thrives on comfortable routines, which are not healthy. There’s Connor apologizing and sticking himself in the corner for an hour or two, which will allow Hank space to clear his head. And finally, there’s Hank cracking and offering Connor a place to sleep, or be on standby, or what the fuck ever, which leads to Connor accepting the invitation with three gentle wrinkles forming around his eyes.

And Hank knows. He’s well and truly _fucked_.

“Yeah,” Hank’s dumb mouth says anyway, because it’s smarter than his brain sometimes. Because his head knows it’s not really being fucked so much as it’s the precipice to something new, something terrifying and strange, something that will mean change. And that change is going to be hard, and it’s going to be weird and uncomfortable and awkward, but it’ll also be good, and healthy, and life-changing. It’ll also be the best thing to ever happen to Hank in over six years, and maybe he’s ready, maybe he’s finally, _finally_ ready for something new. Something good. Even something...great.

Hank smiles at Connor, and lets himself freefall. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

 

* * *

 

Maybe it was never a fluke at all. Maybe what was supposed to be a statistical anomaly became much more than that by nature of deviancy itself. Maybe it was never a question of programs, maybe the notion of happenstance was rendered inert the moment a connection was formed.

That’s what Kamski said, wasn’t it? A strong emotion would unlock the path. It would set a newfound precedent, and the rest would follow. Almost like free will. Almost like destiny. Almost like those two girls, at the nightclub.

Almost like...love.

 

* * *

 

They’re supposed to keep the androids segregated, for the time being. Until the peace talks are settled, until the logistics are set in stone. Until the riots have died down, until the camps are disintegrated. Until it’s over, and the dust has settled.

Hank, of course, does nothing of the sort.

He doesn’t let Connor out of his sight, in fact, too paranoid the idiotic android savior is going to do something miraculously dumb and get himself shot, _again_ , and leave Hank hanging without a single clue as to his whereabouts or his status, dead or alive.

Hank and Connor are still working out logistics of their own, which is a surprise to exactly no one. Connor is great at cataloguing work-related crime scenes, and terrible at cataloguing himself when off the clock. Hank is great at drinking and stewing his worry in silence, and bad at reigning in his anger when Connor finally thinks to call, a good four hours after they’re off work for the day.

It’s a work in progress, to say the least. They’re mid-argument on the same old conundrum in Hank’s living room, half-watching the game on Hank’s television screen, when Connor’s genius brain suggests the brilliant solution of: “I could stay here,” between couch seats.

It’s spoken so quietly Hank almost doesn’t hear the offer. “Come again?”

Connor doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. If Hank didn’t know better, he would call it nerves. “It would be more efficient. It would curb your worry, and I would be better about letting you know my whereabouts, if my whereabouts led me back here.”

There’s a bout of awkward silence Hank can’t quite place before Connor repeats, “it would be more efficient,” like he’s trying to convince himself of the logic.

“I don’t give a shit about efficiency,” Hank says, half on auto-pilot because he’s an asshole and half because it’s the truth. Connor’s left eye twitches, almost a flinch, and Hank‘s brain readjusts. He thinks, long and drawn out.

“But that would be fine. You staying here, I mean.”

Connor looks away from the screen. His face is doing that sincere song and dance where it’s a little too open, a little too honest. It’s fucking heartbreaking, is what it is. “Really?”

Hank reigns in the impulse to snort. “Of fucking course it’s fine, Connor. We’re friends, alright? It’s kind of what you do. Help each other out and all that bullshit.”

Connor smiles at the floor, small. “Friends,” he whispers to no one. To himself.

Hank has to go grab a drink after that, because he doesn’t know which is worse: Connor not knowing, not believing the truth right in front of him, or Hank being so much a dickhead he made the truth non-apparent to a machine.

Hank pauses at the midway point of the glass, though. Because he has to work tomorrow, and because Connor will be alarmed if Hank consumes too much. Hank isn’t sure how he knows Connor’s reaction before he’s even seen it, but he does know that he can’t stand to let Connor down. Not right now, when everything is so tentative and fragile and new. Not now, and possibly not ever.

Sure enough, Connor makes a brief face when Hank sits back down, but it transforms into the briefest of smiles when Hank glances his direction. Like he just realized the half-glass is for his benefit, like he knows Hank’s offer is more than just a place to rest his head. Connor smiles, and Hank knows he gets it; Hank takes a drink, and doesn’t drown.

Hank pulls Connor into a one-armed embrace after that, because it’s easier to pretend there isn’t emotion stuck in his throat if there aren’t any witnesses around to see it. They watch the last of the game like that, nestled in a haphazard collection of limbs. To Hank’s infinite surprise, Connor doesn’t complain about the arrangement once, despite his posture being less than perfect and his button-down getting mussed between couch seats. Hank falls asleep somewhere in the third quarter, but instead of moving away Connor nestles just a tiny bit closer, the closest he’s ever come to diving headfirst into Hank’s personal blend of imperfection.

Hank wakes with a crook in his neck, an overweight dog on his feet, and a prototype android in stand-by mode at his elbow. He’s overheated and all kinds of disfigured from sleeping at an obtuse angle, but the sun is shining, Connor is warm, and Hank is awake before sunrise.

It’s a good start to a good day, all things considered.

 

* * *

 

The next week, Hank wakes up to a sticky note in front of his face.

Except it’s not _the_ sticky note from two weeks prior. That one still exists, but it’s up in the top right corner of the mirror now, replaced by a newer, bolder sticky note with unfamiliar, perfect penmanship.

 _Haircut today_ , it reads.

Hank is half-awake, half-dreading all the life decisions that led him to this moment, so he stares a little longer than usual. It seems unreal that a humanoid person could have messed up his life so thoroughly, when Hank has become so accustomed to living by himself. No one has interrupted his routine of self-loathing in six, going on seven years. He hasn’t seen a new note stuck in his place in over that.

Hank stares, then he laughs.

He outright giggles in front of the mirror, and he doesn’t even know which notion is more ridiculous: Connor taking time out of his precious programmed day to butt his nose into Hank’s affairs, or the thought that Hank might actually follow through on the task. Hank spares a thought to wonder if Connor ran the odds of probability on whether Hank would actually adhere to the request written before him, then laughs some more at the hilarity of that probability being zero and Connor still writing the note anyway.

Hank is still chuckling under his breath when he scrounges a sticky note of his own, then takes his time to write a big, fat _NO_ on the bright orange parchment. He sticks it right next to Connor’s on the mirror, going so far as to line up the two notes side by side. Hank can barely even make out his own face at this rate, but it’s not such a terrible omission. Hank knows what he looks like, and it’s far more entertaining to laugh at Connor’s antics, anyway.

 

* * *

 

“Lieutenant?”

“It’s Hank, Connor. Just Hank. Don’t make it weird.”

“Hank. Right. I just—”

Hank glances up from his breakfast, intrigued. “Yes?”

Connor seems to regain composure when Hank’s focus is directly on him, which makes exactly zero sense to Hank, but he isn’t about to complain. It’s not like it’s all that troublesome, to stare at Connor from across a table.

“I’m—” A pause. “I’m glad the deviant fired on me that day.”

Whatever Hank had been expecting, it wasn’t that. He scoffs with a spoonful of cereal halfway to his face. “No kidding? Why the fuck’s that?”

“Because I wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

Hank knows Connor means _here_ as in here in this house, here with Hank, here sitting in the kitchen, making fun of the news. Hank knows that, and while he can’t say he agrees with the sentiment entirely, he can admit there’s a certain symmetry to Connor’s life, to their story. A certain poetry, perhaps. A reminder that bad things do happen for a reason, sometimes, and sometimes there’s even a reward at the end of all the bullshit for holding on, and staying put.

And that reason might be right in front of you.

“Yeah,” Hank says, and means it. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

Connor smiles for a beat, then motions toward the spoon in Hank’s hand. “Would you like me to try that?”

Hank nearly trips sitting down in his glee to reach Connor’s side of the table. “Really?”

Connor winks. “Really.”

“This is the best day of my life.”

Connor does laugh then, a beautiful, unpracticed sound that has Hank grinning right back like an idiot. “If I had known it would make you this happy, I would have done this a long time ago.”

Hank has the distinct feeling they’re not just talking about Connor eating breakfast anymore, but Hank plays along anyway because why the fuck not. “If you would have done this a long time ago, it wouldn’t have made me this happy.”

Connor thinks about this, then nods. “Makes sense.”

Hanks allows the staring for three more seconds before he breaks. “So, do you want me to spoon-feed you this, or…?”

Connor laughs again. “What would you suggest?”

Hank stalls, staring at his food. Suddenly the entire concept of Connor eating seems more awkward than it did five minutes ago. “I’ve got no fucking clue.”

Connor puts a hand over Hank’s in faux sympathy. The contact surprises Hank enough to bring him face to face with Connor—coin tossing, neck tightening, fucking prototype Connor—whose eyes are shining with mirth. Smug bastard. “I thought you had this planned out.”

“To an extent! Just...never thought it’d be a reality.”

Connor smiles, then pats Hank’s hand. “It’s real.”

Hank doesn’t have anything to say to that, staring like some idiotic sap at Connor’s perfect face over some breakfast cereal. He watches Connor scoot a little bit closer, his face losing some of its humor in favor of something more sincere.

“It’s real,” Connor repeats, as though he knows deep down Hank needs the reassurance, and Hank loves him for it. He does.

Hank doesn’t really know how he got here, to this place, with this person. He doesn’t really know whether it was chance or fate that Connor was created, that he walked into the fifth bar all those months ago. Hank doesn’t really know and he doesn’t really care, because right now, he’s just grateful to be alive. Right now, he’s just grateful Connor is here, smiling and holding his hand from across a kitchen table.

It sounds like the beginning to a bad joke. An android and a policeman walk into a bar…

But what do you know. Somehow, someway, it works.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, please come yell at me about these two beautiful losers on [tumblr](http://arlathahn.tumblr.com/). It would make a fangirl very, very happy. Thanks for stopping by!


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